Dr. Gordon Adams/Abby Ross (they/them) is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and Professor Emeritus of International Relations at American University’s School of International Service. From 1993-97 they were Associate Director for National Security Programs at the Office of Management and Budget, the senior White House official for diplomacy, foreign assistance, defense, and intelligence budgeting. They received the Defense Department’s Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 1997 and were a member of the Defense Policy Board of the Department of Defense (1998-2001),
They have been Professor International Relations and Director of the Security Policy program at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University and Deputy Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. They were founder and Director of the Defense Budget Project in Washington, DC, predecessor of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
They received a PhD from Columbia University in 1970; are author of The Iron Triangle, the Politics of Defense Contracting (1980), and co-author of Transforming European Militaries: Coalition Operations and the Technology Gap (2006) and Buying National Security: How America Buys and Pays for its Global Role and Safety at Home (2010). They are co-editor of Mission Creep: The Militarization of US Foreign Policy? (2014) and have written on defense and foreign policy for The New York Times, Foreign Policy, Washington Spectator, Lobelog, War on the Rocks, The Conversation, and The Hill, among other publications.